‘DESIRE Under the Elms” is the kind of play in which characters wail “Noooooooooo!” upon realizing they’ve killed the wrong person. At another point, someone actually shakes a fist at the heavens.

Robert Falls’ production of the Eugene O’Neill drama, imported from Chicago, unfurls at a fever pitch. The set, the sentiments, the accents — everything is dialed up to 11 and played completely straight.

Leave your sense of irony at home and embrace the insanity, and you won’t find a more intense experience on Broadway.

Mere seconds into the play, it’s painfully obvious things can only end in tears. This ineluctability is writ large in Walt Spangler’s set, a threatening jumble of oversize rocks, some strewn about the stage, others perilously hanging above the characters. (Trees are nowhere to be seen; this is more “Desire Under the Boulders.”)

The New England house everybody wants is also up in the rafters, looming on top of the accursed Cabot family in a striking visualization of the way it constantly preys on their minds. “Purty” is how it’s described several times during the play, but what we see is anything but.

In this oppressive, elemental landscape, men are toiling, grimy, sweaty, grunting. They carry stones; they cut open a hog’s carcass. The sound of beating drums swells. Such an environment can only produce poisonous flowers: greed, violence, selfishness, murder.

Eben (Pablo Schreiber), the youngest son of patriarch Ephraim Cabot (Brian Dennehy), covets the estate. He moves one step closer to his goal by buying out his two half-brothers. But then one day, his father returns with a young bride, Abbie (Carla Gugino).

She is immediately engulfed in lust. First for the farm, then, inevitably, for her stepson.

Eben, who had become almost feminized upon his mother’s death (he’s often shown wearing an apron), regains the masculine upper hand by engaging in an affair with Abbie. At long last, he’s about to have everything he wants: His elderly father can’t last that long, after all, especially if fate gets a bit of a push.

Falls leads us through the increasingly heated situation with a sure hand, imparting a fraught sexual tension even to a series of domestic snapshots beautifully set to Bob Dylan’s “Not Dark Yet.”

The director and his cast are particularly good at creating the feeling that the characters are puppets whose strings are pulled by forces greater than they are.

You have to accept “Desire Under the Elms” on these terms, which blend tragedy (the Greeks loom large) and the outlandish melodramas of the ’40 and ’50s. It’s hard not to be reminded of films such as “Duel in the Sun” or “Baby Doll” at times, especially when Gugino fully deploys her sultry, bruised sensuality.

There’s no better proof of modern Hollywood’s artistic bankruptcy than the fact that this actress, as smart as she is beautiful, is stuck in supporting girlfriend parts on-screen. We should count ourselves lucky that following “After the Fall” and “Suddenly, Last Summer,” Gugino seems to have made theater a regular part of her life.

elisabeth.vincentelli @nypost.com

DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS St. James Theatre, 246 W. 44th St.; 212-239-6200.